5 Days of Homeschooling Without Going Insane ~ Everyone Has a Bad Day

Welcome to the first day of the 5 Days of Homeschooling Blog Hop with The Homeschool Review Crew. This week I am spending 5 days talking about Homeschooling Without Going Insane! Each day I will be telling you about a new topic or idea on how to have fun with your homeschool and make things a little easier.

Today I want to remind you that no matter who you are or how long you have been homeschooling, everyone has bad days. And what better day to talk about this on than on a Monday!

Homeschooling is just like any other thing in your life. Some days are good, some days are bad. You will have to find a way to work around the bad when it happens. Now, you are not alone when it comes to having bad days in your homeschool! I say this from a personal perspective. I have been there. I have struggled. I still do. But I am learning how to change things up!

Take a Break

When you are having a bad homeschool day, the first thing I suggest is to just take a break! Sit back and grab a good book to read. Read it aloud to your children. Your kids will get so much out of a good book, and you won't have to worry or stress about the lesson plans for the day. Your kids are "too old" to listen to a read aloud? No problem! Remember when you were in school and the teacher called D.E.A.R.? Drop Everything And Read. We still use this in our homeschool. It was a time of the school day that I enjoyed as a student and it helped to reset all the attitudes of the day.

Go Outside

You took a reading break and the day still isn't going good? Go outside! Yes, who cares about the weather or the lesson plans. Heck, some days I even take the lessons outside! When the days come around where everyone has too much energy and no attention, we love to go outside! Sometimes we take a book, other days we take lessons to the picnic table or trampoline, but other times we just go outside with a blank notebook and draw or write about what we see as we go around the neighborhood.

Just Stop

Some days you need to just call it what it is and just stop. Take a break, reschedule your lessons and just stop. We have had MANY of those days recently. Since we don't normally take sick days, we are free to take brain break days. And that is just what it is. Some days our brains just don't want to work on school, they are busy trying to figure out the rest of our day, so we just can't do school. That is ok. This is the main reason why I have decided to homeschool year round. We have so many more options to take a break, a real break, when we have 365 days to work with instead of just 180. Two years ago, we had to take time off when Baby Girl was born. I was worried about falling behind since I was not ready or able to jump right back into our scheduled homeschool lessons. Just this year we had to take time off with Daddy and his health scare. I have no fears of falling behind with this time off because I know that we have days that are available to make this up.

Let It Go

When you know that you can change things up, that you are no longer attached to a lesson plan that is written in ink, that you have double the amount of days to work with for the school year, you are able to take a breath when you need it. You know that every single day is not necessary and that you can have a bad day now and again. I am learning, every day, that I can change things as I go. I can pay attention to the children and what they are learning outside to use as their homeschool lessons. I can let the stress go and just be in the moment with the kids. I sat down during the middle of Easter meal preparation just to listen to Baby Girl count with Gaga. while I have not been stressing over what she is leaning at 2 years old, just listening to her count shows me that she is picking it up!

What Do You Do

So, what is it that you do when you have a bad day? Do you stress over it and make it worse, or do you find a way to get past the stress and move forward?

I am linking up to the Homeschool Review Crew and their 5 Days of Homeschooling Blog Hop. There are over 35 other bloggers who are all blogger about other topics during these next 5 days. Take some time and check them out! I am looking forward to reading a few of these!!

Great advice. In our family the first step for me is to evaluate if it is me having a bad day or the kids 🙂 If it's me I try to take the time I need to get myself back on track while the kids keep going with our routine. If it's one child, I try to give them a time to reset by taking 15-30 minutes to sit on their bed or run around outside. When several of us are having a bad day its time for a break of at least 15 minutes quiet time for everyone and then I see if we need more time, outside time, or just a day to chill and watch a movie or work on a personal project and fit in easy subjects that require short periods of time.